Two Iraqi lawmakers from the movement of anti-American Moqtada Al-Sadr were dismissed yesterday for meeting US officials, an official in the movement said. Abdul Mahdi Al-Mtiri, a member of the political committee, which took the decision, told Reuters the committee fired former Transport Minister Salam Al-Maliki and member of Parliament Qusay Abdul Wahab as the movement’s representatives in Parliament for meeting American officials two days ago.Maliki denied he had been sacked and said he had not met any US officials. Mtiri said Sadr had approved the sacking, the first public sign of tension in the normally unified political movement, which holds a quarter of the parliamentary seats in the ruling Shiite Alliance of Shiite Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki. “We have fired them for meeting the occupiers. It is against our beliefs to meet the occupiers. We are seeking to replace them in Parliament with another two brothers,” Mtiri said.
Sadr, a key political ally of Maliki, led his Mehdi Army militia in two uprisings against the American military in 2004 and has long demanded US forces leave Iraq. While he has criticized American involvement in a seven-week-old security crackdown in Baghdad, he has not withdrawn his support for an offensive seen as a last-ditch attempt to halt all-out sectarian civil war in Iraq.